13 Reasons Why
by Ellienoth
Summary: 13 tapes containing the thirteen reasons why Blaine Anderson killed himself. And these tapes are being sent to all the thirteen people guilty of having destroyed Blaine's life. When they finally arrive to Kurt, he doesn't know what to expect and he doesn't understand what do he has to do with it all. Still, he is in one of those tapes and - sooner or later - his name will pop up.
1. Chapter 1

An unbranded brown shoebox containing something laid on my bed. It was wrapped in a thick layer of scotch which looked like it had been undone several times, giving the idea that someone had changed their idea repeatedly about what to put inside, or maybe it had just been passed through a lot of hands. My name was scribbled on the top of the shoebox in a sharp and not pleasing calligraphy, but the most fascinating thing was that there wasn't a senders name and it didn't really happen often to me to receive anonymous mail. Well, if we don't count free insults from some homophobes that still hadn't put a stone on the fact that I was actually gay and he politely preferred to put it on me. Who knew? Maybe in the box there would be an amputated finger or some psychology books to heal or even some strange sex toy that people had assumed I liked because I was gay. I went over the avalanche of thoughts and conspiracy that was burying me and I sat on my bed. The springs on my bed squeaked and the bedcover rustled. With my nails – and a lot of patience – I ripped the scotch from the shoebox edges and lifted the cover with my hands trembling in a mix of emotion, anxiety and fear.

Okay, it didn't absolutely contain anything I expected.

Inside the box there were some audiotapes. They were of various colors: blue, white, black, red… each one marked with what it looked like silver non-fading pen. There was a number on the side of every tape, from one to thirteen. The last tape was marked only on one side and I wondered why. The thing was turning curious but definitely creepy at the same time. Luckily I was an old songs lover so my dad finally agreed – years before – to buy me a tape player. I had literally consumed all the audiocassettes people gave me as a present, and I loved the one my mom gave me before she died: it was a Barbra Streisand tape.

I was happy to have the chance to bustle with that machine once more. I put the tape in with the number one scribbled on and pressed the play button, absolutely impatient of knowing what would come out from the speakers.

Seriously, it could have been a bad joke, maybe some porn sounds, but I was home alone and, if it was really just a joke – most likely hypothesis – I could just throw it all.

A strange rustle.

It was a recording.

Then a voice came out from the speakers and I almost screamed.

It couldn't be?

_Hello everybody, Blaine Anderson here, if you recognize me. _The tape crackled and it felt like all the air had been sucked out of my lungs. Nausea grew in my stomach and I suddenly felt sick because Blaine Anderson had killed himself a few weeks ago. He had swallowed a handful of pills and left this world without an explanation, not letting anybody realize he was suffering so much.

_The purpose of this tape is to tell the story of my life or, better saying, the thirteen reasons why it ended and if you got them it means you're one of the reasons why. Don't freak out now, I'm sure almost none of you did what he did meaning to bring to this. Maybe you should have just thought. Maybe. Oh, and there are rules, obviously. You can't complain to me anyway because I'll already be dead when you receive the tapes, so just play the game and don't create troubles, okay?_

**Pause.**

I had to stop the recording because it looked absurd from too many sides. First, I couldn't be one of the reasons Blaine Anderson killed himself. I hadn't done anything, I was brooding at the speed of sound but I couldn't find any reason. Blaine was beautiful and lonely and he had this deep voice which caused me to shiver. I couldn't have hurt him, I refused to believe so. Secondly, was he playing with his potential murderers? The one who pushed him to suicide? Suddenly being on one of those tapes scared me to death.

If the box had reached me it meant that somebody else had listened to those tapes and found out the truth. Someone else knew I was on those tapes. Maybe I should have thrown them, maybe I wasn't part of it and the box had just been sent to me as a horrible joke, seeing the comments I had aroused the couple of times I had been seen talking with Blaine. Yeah, maybe it was it, I was innocent.

But what if…

**Play.**

_Rule number one: Listen. It won't take long I promise, I know each and every one of you and I perfectly know you'll be curious now. You wouldn't know how to stay away from something like this anyway. Rule number two: once you've finished listening to every tape, rewind them and put everything back into the shoebox, then send it to the person on the tape next to yours. If you don't do so I can guarantee that I made copies of these audiocassettes and they will become public. All of your nightmares will be of public dominion and I don't think this is what you want. The thirteenth person can bring the tapes to Hell with him so maybe he would have the chance to give them back to me. Oh, I forgot! _He exclaimed, spicing everything with a distracted laughter that made me shudder for how much it seemed to have him next to me. _Into the shoebox there is also a map. Every tape corresponds to a place which I suggest – but not force – you to visit. You could find it interesting. Maybe. Enough chatting, let's begin, are you ready?_

I swallowed hard.

'No' I wanted to answer.

_Hello Santana Lopez, it's a pleasure not to see you again._

It looked all so unreal that it seemed impossible. I mean, Blaine Anderson, one of my school mates who had killed himself a few weeks before, had left some tapes with the reasons of his death and 13 people – me between them- where claimed to be the guilty ones. Now it was our time to listen since it looked like we hadn't done it enough.

But what if I didn't want to listen?

I didn't have that much of a choice.

**Play.**

A rustle in the background, as usual.

_Ah, Santana, you don't need to put on that grumpy face. I know you won't understand what are you doing at the beginning of my list and I know you will be turning up your nose, but don't! Don't switch off! You need to listen, because everything started with you. You're the first reason, San. _A pause and a sigh. I felt like I was violating a private atmosphere so I shifted uncomfortably on the bed where I sat. _Do you remember when – as children – we thought we were straight? Ah, yes, if anyone didn't notice it by now, Santana Lopez is a lesbian and I am gay. Which means a lot, actually. We thought we were straight because everyone was so interested in the other sex and so we thought we should do as the majority of the people and ask a person of the opposite sex out. __So we did it, do you remember that?_

I went through the same story too, but it had been a relatively brief phase of my life because my love for fashion and musicals and most of all the huge crush I had on Patrick Swayze after watching Dirty Dancing yelled gay from all around. So it didn't take that much time to realize I was interested in boys. Blaine had to find it out in the worst way, instead: going on a date with a girl and realizing there was nothing really attractive in her.

Sadly, I knew it.

_I don't know how we found each other, but being friends with Sam Evans brought me to go out with the quarterbacks and cheerleader, you were actually a cheerleader. I admit it; I can recognize beauty and you were beautiful. You really were, indeed, you really are since I am the dead one. I asked Sam whether you had a boyfriend and he said no winking at me. I can still remember his allusive tone of voice that completely fell on nothing. Then, he gave me your number and pushed me next to you for the whole night while you were looking at me with a really confused and scared face. Curiosity overtook us, I guess. We exchanged numbers – even if Sam already gave me yours, and we promised to text each other like good kids at their first experience. I wonder why, but you really didn't look like that could be your first experience. By the way we started exchanging texts which went from the simple getting to know the other to the ruthless flirting. I'm really sorry to inform you I imagined to text Zac Efron all the time. Yes, Zac Efron, any problem? I had a huge crush on him during the High School Musical era. Be honest, who didn't? Anyway I think I was in love with the idea of a relationship. I liked the text exchange, the hidden glances, staying up all night sending messages to each other, you just… weren't right for me._

**Pause.**

I took a few seconds to metabolize the idea of a kid dealing with his first relationship with another person whom he's not actually attracted to. I think most people would have just gone mad, but maybe Blaine didn't realize that. Moreover, it had been the beginning of the end, from what he had said, so I wished with all my heart to have been there to save him. I wanted to be the one whom he could have his first experiences so that I could bring peace to that confused spirit that kept coming out from him, also by the broken tone of the voice of the tape. Maybe we could have gotten to know each other, in another life, while being young and go out, play, fall in love…

But it hadn't gone this way. Blaine was dead and letting my imagination travel didn't do any good. Neither to me or to him. I had to finish listening to those cassettes and find out what I had done, no matter how horrible it was. Who knows, maybe when I finished I wouldn't be able to look myself in the same light again.

If I kept going on playing and pausing the tape every ten minutes it would have taken a month to finish and I wasn't sure I could handle it.

Thinking about it how could an old story still burn so painfully to be one of the reasons of his suicide? Was it so important?

Pressing that goddamned play button would have given me the answer.

**Play.**

_I'd like for you now, if it's possible, to take the map and go to my old house. I lived at 234 Sunday Street before moving to another part of the city. As I said before you can find the map inside the shoebox – hoping that none of you lost it, but I doubt it – and you will just have to follow my instructions to reach the various places. Of course, only if you have the possibility to move._

Of course I did, my need to listen to Barbra Streisand's audiocassettes had been so urgent that my father had had to buy my a portable tape player, one so old that it seemed impossible for it to still work, but it was mine and so I could follow Blaine stories' traces. I wanted to touch everything with my hands, to understand, because the sensation of something more that I was missing was too frustrating to just ignore all this.

I knew I had to be responsible in some way and I wanted to know why but jumping right to my tape wouldn't have been right to him. If I really hurt him – all together with the other, obviously – I owed it to him.

_Use the map as a battleship champ. You just need to go to the point D-3 then you can reach it comfortably by the bus number 27 if you've got the chance to take it, or you can just walk. It's a beautiful district, or it _was_, I don't know which is the right verb to use here. _

**Pause.**

Looking at the map I succeeded finding the D-3 point and I realized it was too near to my house. I had never known he had lived so near to me. I probably didn't know a thing about Blaine actually, but I never thought that maybe I should have. I just needed to turn left after reaching the end of my street and then go straight on. I could do it.

I took all the audiocassettes and managed to put them into the many pockets of my coat, I removed the tape from the player in my room and put in into the portable one. I recovered my headphones from my MP3 and connected them with my Walkman, then placing it into one of the pockets and took out from the dresser my half-finger gloves and a wool hat. Then, I glanced at the room looking for my scarf because it was almost impossible to go out without it. The ice age was covering the town because of a weather front coming from the Atlantic Ocean.

I couldn't believe it. I was procrastinating thinking about the weather while in my pockets I had thirteen reasons of the death of a boy. I pressed down the hat on my head and ran downstairs. I caught a glimpse of the blue cloth I was looking for and I grabbed it together with the keys, running out of the house and wrapping the scarf around my neck, feeling anxious and my breath transforming into steam clouds that I broke walking into them.

I was following the map of a suicidal. I was following thirteen potential stories and potential murderers.

And I didn't even have any relationship with Santana Lopez.

**Play.**

_I never thought it could happen to you, Sam._

**Pause.**

Wrong side of the tape, great. I turned it and press the play button.

**Play.**

_... the right verb to use here. I remember when you came to my house, dressed as a cheerleader, after school, and you were looking around awkwardly. Or embarrassed. I don't know. I only know my parents weren't at home as usual, too busy with the work at their new shop. But I didn't suffer from solitude, at least not yet._

Lucky you, I thought, because when my father was stuck in his garage all day I suffered a lot.

_We sat on the sofa watching repeats of My Wife and Kids without paying real attention. I was too busy thinking about where I should have put my hands, whether or not I had to pretend to stretch just to hug you or maybe holding your hand. The horrible thing about all this is that… I really didn't feel like doing any of it. Not with you. And I didn't know how this could be possible; my classmates didn't seem to think about anything else. I almost believed you for a while. But let's keep this for later._

How many stories did you have to tell? How many reasons to take your life away? I kept walking with an expressionless face. It was making me curious but it gave me goose bumps at the same time for how sad and creepy it was. It was a dead voice, the voice of a dead boy. Of course, even when I was watching a Michael Jackson concert on DVD he was dead; but it was a different kind of dead. I knew Blaine. Blaine and I…

_I remember you kept that serious face also when you decided to set with your legs around my waist. My first kiss, in fact, was you. You leaned on me and – with the look of one who doesn't really know why she's doing what she's doing – when your lips touched mine the sensation was good but, at the base of my stomach, I could feel a bad feeling pulsing inside me. You had to go. And that's what happened, practically. I kindly pushed you away and told you I didn't feel well and that it would have been better for you if you just went home. I thought I hurt you but your face was exactly the same as mine, you just couldn't admit it. So, next day, at school, while I was still trying to figure out why I didn't feel the strong desire to kiss you or touch you as I expected, you had already told a bizarre version of what happened. A rumor that was spread through the whole school in just one morning and that would have been the beginning of the enormous mountain or ground destined to bury me alive._

Blaine probably didn't remember but we had gone to the same middle school so I perfectly know what he was talking about. The rumor had reached me too through notes or chatting in the corridors, I didn't remember perfectly, I just knew I heard it.

I had to turn right now, I had reached Sunday Street.

_I looked for Sam, the only one I considered as a friend in the new city where I had moved during the summer, to ask him why the hell did everybody looked at me like I had some sort of strange thing on my face. He answered with a shrug and looked around suspiciously. Then I remember he took me by the shoulders and dragged me to one of the room where the janitors kept their brooms and stuff. _

"_Man, it has been an awful move the one with Santana, really." He told me, his forehead was corrugated._

_I wasn't sure I did understand what he meant, but I guessed San had told him everything, or at least, the real version of the facts._

"_I know I shouldn't have told her to leave, but…"_

_Sam shook his head in a reproaching way. _

"_Come on, kissing and touching her – Her first times. And then you tell her you're a faggot? It's the worst excuse ever, man. She's destroyed." He explained._

_Gay, I thought, a faggot? I hadn't even realized it myself, how could she have gotten to the right conclusion before me? She had felt the same of course, the same wrong sensation. But I hadn't kissed her nor touched her; I hadn't even felt the desire to do such things that was exactly the problem!_

"_Sam, I didn't do those things to her, I'm not that kind of person." I tried to reply but he waved my answer away with his hand._

"_The point is that you did it and then make her leave with an excuse! Come on, man!" he hissed, keeping his voice as low as possible._

"_An excuse?" I asked, more confused than before. I was starting to understand the problem, San, and it all started because of you. But what had I done to you? I really don't understand._

"_Yes, the being gay bullshit. You used her, mate."_

_I turned up my nose._

"_What if it wasn't bullshit?" I answered. Maybe I could be honest with my only friend or at least that's what I thought._

"_What do you mean?" he asked, his face was a confused mask._

"_I am not… attracted to Santana." I explained, repeating what had been running through my head for weeks._

"_It's possible not to be attracted by a girl." He shrugged again. "But it doesn't mean that…"_

"_Listen, I'm only telling you what happened. You don't have to believe me; I'm trying to tell you one really… important thing. I think I am gay, Sam, is that a problem?" I asked, naively and ignorant about the effect that the word gay had on the world._

"_For all the ones out of this room it is, Blaine. Really, and I am really sorry, really, forgive me…" he murmured lowering his glance on his hand. I followed the line of his eyes and I saw that with his palm he was pressing a button on the desk: the old interphone that the janitors used to use for the service communications to the school. It had become obsolete so a new one had been installed but the old one was still working. That meant that the whole school had heard every world of what I had said. It didn't matter if they were in the bathroom, in the courtyard, in class or smoking. Everyone knew._

_And it had all begun because of you, Santana, and I know this wasn't what you wanted but it is what happened and it has been where it all started._

I stopped in front of the number 234 and I looked at the house. It was clean and bright as if no one had ever lived there. As if that wasn't the horrible cave of the worst of the consciousness. Blaine had found out everything on his own, in the wrong way and spread around the school. I didn't get whether or not Sam had done it purposely but I knew it had happened because I had heard that conversation, too. I knew it; I was at my biology class when it had been transmitted.

And from that moment on Blaine had been more isolated than usual, labeled as faggot, slut, gay, tramp, fake. I had heard all those nicknames in the corridors but I had been too worried about protecting myself to care and just now I understood how selfish I had been.

"I'm so sorry." I murmured to the empty house. The tape on the audiocassette had gone on in silence, then a whisper.

_The beginning of the ground that has slowly covered my grave._

_Sam Evans, don't think I let you aside. You're next._

_End of part one._

I wondered again what I did to be in one of those tapes.


	2. Chapter 2

It was cold; still it wasn't easy to find the courage to look away from that house. It was just like when you've seen a corpse and you cannot rewind and pretend not to have seen it. It will always be there just at the corner of your eye, printed in your memory like fire ink. That house. Everything started there, Blaine. Your end, the flood, the ground, as you call it. How I wish everything happened like in the movies and stopped all of this before it was too late. But I didn't even if I could.

I quickly rewinded the tape, my fingers numb from the cold and then I extracted it, my hands shaking as I turned it, inserting it on the side with the bright number two scribbled on it. Sam Evans was the subject, the tall, muscled blonde who hid his goofiness in a football player facade.

It had always been sad and pathetic, but it seemed like I was the only one who noticed it.

The rest of the world adored him.

I wondered what he could have done to Blaine, besides pressing that button obviously.

Well, I was probably going to find out really soon.

**Play.**

_It is revealing to be more fun than I thought. Explain you all, I mean. I could not do it, I could just leave but that's not how it works. I'm sorry. Where was I?_

He paused and I heard the noise of crumpled up paper sheets while trying to be uncurled. A thoughtful muttering in the background.

_Ah, found it! __Sam Evans. I apologize, but you really are a lot and I end up just forgetting things._

_Well, I guess soon it won't be a problem anymore._

_Sam, right, let's just head back to you. This side of the tape is all yours. Almost._

_After the phone episode I didn't talk to you for weeks – even though you were trying to fix everything - you kept sending me texts, leaving notes on my locker but there hasn't been a time when you talked to me in person. Speaking to me dragged you to the outcasts, so why worry so much in the end? It was better to enjoy popularity. Yes, you were right, but people didn't know about you. Oh, I perfectly know that know you know what I'm going to talk about. Sure, you were afraid I came out with this, weren't you? I know I didn't want that conversation to be heard by the whole school too, but… Still, this tape is not for revenge, Sam, really, I don't hold a grudge on you. __I swear. _

He laughed melancholy but it wasn't funny, really. I was curious but, at the same time, I hated the idea of not having realized earlier, what an asshole I was.

_Before I continue I want you to go to the Lima Bean, I guess you've probably already been there at least one time anyway; it's practically like the Church for old people. Everyone goes there. In case you're suffering from a loss of memory it's in the F-1 zone and you can go there by any bus since it's close to the station._

Lima Bean? He really wanted me to listen to his voice at a table, sipping coffee and glancing at the other customers' faces that'd look at me not understanding why I had that dead look on my face? Oh no, sorry, Blaine. I didn't want to think that word. I don't want to think _you_ are the dead one.

I turned around and started walking to the bus stop I had noticed at the beginning of Sunday Street. The air was really brisk and – since it was late evening by now – people had already returned from work and burrowed inside their houses while I was still listening to a boys personal epitaph, a boy everyone said to be weird but that had nothing wrong. And I knew it really well after that party, but earlier as well.

My jeans had stiffened from the cold and it felt like I was going to rip them at every step I took. Above all this I felt the bite of ice on my face and shoulders. My coat wasn't exactly warm enough but it was the only thing that could manage to contain all those tapes that I had to listen to. I arrived at the bus stop – where I had to wait more or less ten minutes for the 27 to pick me up – so I sat on the sidewalk breathing into my hands to warn them up without real results. So I kept listening during my waiting.

_Still I didn't expect entering the male changing room to be a mistake – yes, yes I was distracted because of all the pushes given to me – to see you pressed against the lockers by Noah Puckerman. I would have never said it could happen to you, Sam. I thought I was high, I stood by the door with the strong feeling that I needed to punch you and run away. Because you were kissing a boy, because you made me out myself in front of the whole school – willing or not – and you didn't even come looking for me to confess that maybe _you_ were in the same situation as I was. You know how easier it would have been to confront it together? Being there for each other? I still don't understand how you could keep it from me. We were friends. Neighbors. When I had just arrived in town you suddenly introduced yourself and showed me around the area. You introduced me to your friends and for the whole summer we had always been at one or the other's house. It was all I could ever ask in a friendship but at least I thought you were sincere. Right when I was having doubts on my sexual orientation I had told you, but it looked like you weren't of the same idea._

**Pause.**

I swallowed hard. Sam Evans and Noah Puckerman? Two of the most popular kids of the entire school? And no one ever noticed it. I suddenly realized why those tapes managed to come to me: nobody had had the courage to break the rules and destroy them due to the fear that their secrets could become of public domain. We didn't know how, we just knew it would happen and that we couldn't risk. For a few instants I feared for myself.

The bus appeared on the street so I stood up putting out my hand to make it stop. When the driver pulled the brakes right in front of me a bitter gust of wind hit me causing me to shiver as I entered the mode of transport. The doors squeaked as they opened but a hot wave slipped from inside them so I rushed inside, collecting the ticket from the machine. Luckily, I dare to say.

The driver observed me for a long time, maybe I was so pale that I looked like a bad guy. But was a bad guy actually pale? Then, he decided not to mind, hitting the pedal, since I was just one of the two passengers of the bus. The other one was a boy I knew from school and I was almost sure he was Mike Chang; I definitely didn't know what he was doing on a bus at that hour. But on the other hand he was probably wondering the same thing about me, so...

**Play.**

_I remember you heard the door opening and you turned around. Then you saw me and your jaw fell in a guilty expression. You knew why I hated you in that moment. I don't hate you anymore, there is no reason to now, but in that exact second I felt so betrayed that I really didn't care about the fact that you were hiding too. Puckerman tried to stop you while you started running after me, I heard him calling your name. You then explained to me in a note that nobody should know you two were there, that it was just thanks to a deal with a janitor who owed you a favor that you could stay in there. At that time no student was allowed in those rooms, in fact they should have been locked. I wonder why I stumbled up right there; why when I tried to open that door it should have been locked. If that didn't happen maybe I would have never found out. _

_I ran away, I reached the security exit facing the courtyard and I left. I wonder what all those students thought of you rushing after me. On the other hand it was impossible for them to think worse of me, so whatever. I went home from school that day and you followed me. You left everything just to explain things to me. I thought you were being nice, but maybe you just felt guilty. I ended up sheltering at the Lima Bean – which stood just a block away – and you came with me. I sat and you just sat on the chair opposite me whilst I tried not to look at you and forget your presence._

"_I can explain." __You said but honestly explanations where the last thing I needed, Sam, the last._

We reached my stop, the one in front of the Lima Bean. I pressed the stop button and went down, continuing to hear Blaine's voice becoming increasingly tired from the headphones.

"_Puck and I…" you said, but you definitely started in the wrong way. _

"_Why don't we talk about you and me, Sam, uh? Why don't we start from the fact that, on the contrary to me, you haven't said a word about it?"_

_Maybe it was just me seeing things in the wrong way but how could it be that after a whole summer constantly together it didn't mean a thing to you?_

_Or at least that was what I thought. Maybe I was wrong. You tell me, Sam. Oh, No, wait you can't._

"_I tried to tell you." __You muttered._

"_When? __After you had made the school aware of what I had told you with a lot of… pain?" I asked, trying not to look you in the eyes because I really felt betrayed, Sam. You were popular, had a boyfriend – or something like that – and no one ever pushed you against the lockers, because no one knew. But I, thanks to you, hadn't been so lucky and no one would have ever dreamed of being with me seeing the dangers he would have faced, and I understood them. _

_High school reputation is one of the most important things ever to an adolescent. What everyone kept forgetting is that… it was for me too. _

I would have gone out with you, Blaine; I would have gone out with you a thousand times. I just hadn't enough self-confidence to ask you. Anyway I had the bad feeling that you would have refused.

_"It was… hard." You answered._

"_So was it for me." __I explained, thinking that you would understand but what did you have to understand then? There was nothing to understand._

"_I know but… it didn't happened purposely. I realized I felt something for Noah and..."_

"_I don't care, Sam, Really. __I'm happy for you, somewhere inside me. I was alone. And I still am. Because of you and because of me and because of Santana and because of the world, I guess. I don't know, I'm sorry I… I thought we were friends." I whispered and I was about to get up but you grabbed my wrist. _

"_Sooner or later I'll get you out of this shit, man, I promise you." You told me, and I nodded so that you would let me go. __But I believed you even if just a bit. You didn't keep your promise, Sam._

**Pause.**

I entered the Lima Bean – they remained open until 11 PM – so I still had time to process it all. I knew it would take more than a lifetime. The girl at the cash desk was Tina Cohen-Chang, she was Asian and I had exchanged a few words during carpentry. She had been nice but I was sure there was something else behind the façade.

I approached the desk, hands trembling. I ordered something randomly so I didn't look like an imbecile unable to read.

My eyes fell on a Medium Drip I didn't have the slightest idea of what the hell it was. I just needed to remove from my head Blaine's words, the sense of absolute injustice they had left in me and I didn't dare to think how it could be for him. How hard was it to have to cope with all those things, Blaine? Why did everyone think time would pass and you would forget?  
Tina looked at me with her eyes wide and inspired as if she wanted to say something, but then her shoulders lowered and she rushed to prepare what I had ordered.

Why was everyone so selfish? That thought kept burning through my brain.

Tina handed me my coffee in the thermic carton glass and I sniffed the strong smell. There was nobody in the bar – probably because it was definitely too late – so I decided that, even if I wasn't willing to do so, maybe talking to Tina would distract me from all that guiltiness and frustration.

"Hey." I greeted her after some good ten minutes that I was there. She lifted her glance from the cash machine and looked honestly sad.

"Kurt." She whispered, torturing her fingers. Why was she so nervous? Tina had always been one of the smiling and sweet girls, that painful expression looked so weird on her. The coffee machine beeped, evidence that it was ready.  
"How're you doing?" I asked, attempting to be nice, but talking wasn't really helping as much as I thought.  
"I'm so, so sorry Kurt…" she whispered, and then her hands rushed to cover her mouth as if something unforgivable had slipped from her lips.  
"You're sorry?" I asked, confused. She shook her head frenetically and backed away from me. She pressed something on the coffee machine and gave me the bill she had already registered, half crumpled up, making me understand that the conversation was over. I wasn't even able to realize how much that reaction had hurt me. I took the change from the desk and went to sit down.

The chairs in the Lima Bean were so comfortable that I could have slept on them but, with the weight of those tapes inside my pockets and the sound of Blaine's voice in my mind, it felt as if someone was using his nails on a blackboard. I sipped my coffee and my tummy suddenly warmed up feeling something good coming from that horrible night, while my fingers resumed sensibility thanks to the hot contact with the glass.

**Play.**

_But I have something else to say about you, Sam, even if you will realize later. If you're at the Lima Bean, just know that I've been there quite a lot and, maybe, I could have left something on the blue Guest Book on the bookshelf where everybody has stolen a book from._

I stood up, almost overturning the chair and scaring Tina, and then I ran to take the notebook that was still there. I browsed it looking for something which screamed 'Blaine' from the thousands of phallic drawings and kids' dedications which said "I luv u 4ever". It wasn't hard to find the only sentence which really didn't fit on that notebook.

_I wonder if you will ever find what I've left. __I wonder if you will be able to catch the few pieces of me left on this notebook. I give you a hint, it's really easy:_

"_**Don't feel bad for me. Deep in the soul of my heart I really want to go."  
**_

It was a song, the lyrics sounded familiar to me.

It was signed with a date: 18/11/12. The day he killed himself.

I felt sick so I left the bar and ran outside.

I barely noticed Tina's sadder expression.

_I remember when I wrote that sentence._

I leaned on the trash bin but beyond the car park and waited for that nauseous feeling to twist my stomach, but nothing happened. I was destined to keep that bitterness inside.

_What a beautiful day that one. __Best decisions always come when you least expect them._

He had written it, in the Guest Book and nobody had ever noticed it, I was sure. It wasn't an announcement but it was still a help request. Someone had to have seen him writing, at least Tina or Quinn Fabray, who worked there.

_Demolition of a person in a few steps. You were managing to do really well, I'm sorry, but this is just the second name so you'll probably be wondering: how many people had been involved to make me feel the useless and pointless creature I feel today? I don't know. It could have been one, two, or each and every one of you. This tale is the chain of various facts that have practically taken my story and broke me to pieces._

_Don't be sad, it's not worth it by now; I just thought it was right for you to know. And now stop, the list is long and the tape is ending._

_Hi, Finn Hudson, you know you would have come out sooner or later, so it's better to do it and don't think about it anymore._

_End of tape number two._  
_  
_


	3. Chapter 3

I started walking down the edge of the street, so dimly lit that I risked being run over every two or three steps. I couldn't take my mind off the idea that I should have realized it all and I'd had plenty of occasions to do it. Why had I been so blind? I ended up at the train station – which was a few feet away, and I entered, sitting on the platform next to the railways to observe the night and how abandoned the station was, forgotten by God. The pigeons walked on the line between the tiles with a lopsided pace and I wondered how they didn't die in the being out in the cold. I kept my head down and my hands on my knees, a wide sense of emptiness spreading all over my chest. I had to switch tape, put in the second one. I had to listen to it all that night, sleeping sounded so far away by now. I pushed the eject button and, sniffing hard, I put it in my pocket and took the tape number two, inserting it into the recorder to the A side.

It was your turn, Finn. How could you be in that tape? I didn't even know you knew Blaine in the first place and you were my step-brother, I know you really well. I was aware that sometimes you could look naïve and you were definitely moody but… I refused to believe that you were one of the 13 reasons why.

Like me, apparently.

**Play.**

_I was waiting for your turn. I waited and I even let you be the third, Finn, because I know that you repent and apologized, but your words still opened the window I needed to realize that, if I wanted to, I could jump down. You're the only one who let me near you after the Sam-thing. You let me borrow your notes and patted my shoulder. You invited me to your house, like that, randomly. It was a week when I got close to you more than necessary. I had nothing else in my loneliness and I was attracted to you like a magnet. I didn't understand why you were so nice to me. Then, I found out that you had been absent from school due to a particularly nasty case of mono and you hadn't heard a thing and hadn't been informed about the corridors chats. Until nobody realized your kindness to me, you had been the only one to show a little of compassion for my condition. You didn't even understand why everybody tended to bully me to keep me away._

It was typical of Finn not to realize a thing and behave like a good- intentioned with a boy.

He had always been like that.

_Until you had the idea to ask to your mates why and they answered. I don't know their exact words but it's not luck because yours hurt more. I don't know why I trusted you, Finn, maybe because of my loneliness and your sincere smile. And yes, it was so, but as much sincere as that were your words the next day._

No, it couldn't be. In that moment I understood Finn's anxiety in those last days. He had already received the tapes and he had probably used – I really don't know how he managed to do it – my gadgets while I was too busy with the afternoon college orientation courses. That was why he had stopped talking to me and he was always out. What a fool I had been, thinking it was because of Rachel who was still trying to make it up with him.

_Someone had explained to you what I had said and I don't know if you didn't expect that or that your hate, for those infinite seconds, was really so strong. I remember I approached you at the end of a lesson where you hadn't spoken to me nor asked how I was, which was what you to do by then. And I remember you dodged as if some electricity had passed through us, as if I were infected. I don't think I'll never forget that. _  
_I had to higher my head to look you in the eyes but you didn't want to see me._

**Pause.**

God, I was digging my fingernails into my head and trembling, trying to hold the tears that vibrated in my eyes. Finn, for Christ's sake, what had you done? Probably everything happened during my PE lesson. They told me, then, that you got mad but I never asked you why. I guessed that if you hadn't talked to me about anything concerning it, it probably wasn't worth talking. We weren't step-brothers yet but we were still friends.

You better; if I had known what you had done I would have waited for you outside our house to punch you in the face. I had to vent, I had to stop shaking but it was right because of that I pressed the play button as a mistake.

**Play.**

_"Have I done something wrong?" I asked the sound of my voice made you shiver. Oh, I still see the scene as if I have it in front of my eyes._

"_I wouldn't know where to start." You said, and I suddenly turn away my hand which had remained held between us two. _

_I looked at you suspiciously, I had guessed; the moment I knew I had avoided thanks to God had arrived._

_My bitter glance was the drop that made the vase overflow._

"_You didn't tell me you are gay!"_

_Your grave voice almost made me back off. _

"_You didn't tell me you are straight." I retorted, no intention to suffer again always the same injuries. It felt like talking to a mirror. Around us a crowd was growing thick._

"_Because that is normal, obviously!" you blurted and I desperately wanted to cry. Nobody was really different from the others, not even you. I was so hurt it wasn't possible to pretend you weren't really saying those idiocies. _

"_Well, my apologies then, I'm Blaine Anderson and I'm homosexual, happy now?" I blurted back, giving up because there was nothing to do by then, everything I would say would end up being wrong. Your face contracted in a hurt expression, like mine, still you didn't stop shouting._

"_If you had told me… dunno… I would have behaved differently." You whispered confused, and I tightened my teeth not to burst in a childish sob. But I was fourteen, Finn Hudson, and those words for me was an entire world collapsing with happy punches to my stomach that would have left scars forever inside me as an enclose. A bit like you all, I have scars that bring all your names.  
_

I held the bridge of my nose to calm down. It was like all those words had been shouted to my face and I couldn't believe it had been my step-brother to say such things, my loved and inspiring step-brother. Finn, why? Blaine already suffered, you've been unforgivable. It's unforgivable.

I planted my fingernails in the palms of my hands but it didn't ease the disappointment.

Blaine, you could come to me. I could have saved you.

Wait a second, wait… you came to me actually. But…

_We didn't talk until high school where I don't know what changed but you started looking for me and trying to speak to me. And I really wanted to be able to forgive you, Finn, really, but I felt too irreversibly broken._

I knew what changed during high school. My father talked to him pretty seriously about homosexuality after we united the families. One day Finn had, in fact, got crazy and had begun to shout to me. It was a moment I removed from my memory but now it was impossible for me not to think about it. I just wanted Burt to talk to him earlier, maybe things would have gone differently for Blaine. How much I hated that everything that had happened to him was the result of the meeting of so many horrifying and avoidable causalities.

_One day you blocked me out of the school. I had to tell you that I didn't think you would come so far. You dragged me to the courtyard after your football training and my afternoon math lesson. What a coincidence that we finished at the same time. I tried to make myself incredibly little and to press myself against the wall because I didn't want to look you in the eyes. _

"_I'm sorry." You said, nothing else__. You did nothing but saying it but I couldn't ease the knot at the base of my throat to answer you._

"_I've been an idiot, Blaine; I'm asking you to pretend that day… never happened."_

_And you put it so easily, but words – especially the bad ones – never let you go. __They remain in your head forever. __I can't remove that day from my memory, it keeps flashing before my eyes. _

"_I can't, Finn." I eventually answered, trying to escape because I was starting to feel sick. I was about to throw up._

"_I'm honest; I don't think I've ever said something so stupid." You stopped me again, a pleading look in your eyes and I felt guilty for not being able to forgive you. If I had managed it we could have been friends again and I wouldn't be alone anymore, but the tar that was nested inside me – busy growing and suffocating_ _me – kept me from doing so._

_I overcame that huge barrier – which didn't let me put more than two words in line – to give you at least some sort of explanation. __But then, did I owe it to you?_

"_Finn I can't. I don't… you simply expressed the general thought and I trusted you but the idea of being next to you now reminds me of the moment non-stop and I… I can't do this. I'm sorry that you said those things; you were the only person I could count on because you didn't know but once you knew you reacted just like everyone else. I can't… forget that. I can't because if at least the others everything they thought they said it behind my back and I could just imagine them… you gave me the final proof of what everyone was thinking…still thinks and I'm still not sure that you don't think anymore."_

"_I don't…"_

"_Every time I'll hear them I imagine them coming out of your mouth. I'm sorry, I don't know how to say that I'm sorry but I can't bring myself to forgive you and forget everything. I can't do it and I ask you to stay away from me from now on, please." I explained and it felt like talking more than I have ever done in my entire life.  
It had been hard and horrible to take out all those words and even more horrible was the expression you had on your face._

_I ran away and went home, closing the door behind my back and running upstairs to enter to the storage-room and scream. You have no idea of how much I screamed that day, Finn. Eventually, when I felt my vocal chords become more like cement wires than flesh, I went downstairs to have dinner and talked about pointless things with my parents. But the monster inside me was feeding, Finn, oh if it was feeding and it was waiting for the every moment to make my hate and loneliness never leave me so that it could feed on it__._

A sob escaped my lips.

_It's a succession of disappointment and internal and external attacks. _

_There's someone who begun and someone who finished the job._

_This is why I'm here._

_Tina Chang, yours is next move._

_End of tape 2 side A._

__I stood up from the railway and started to run, entering to random streets, my nose frozen and the air freezing inside my throat due to the coldness. The cement had a thin layer of slippery ice on it, but I hadn't realized it so I kept running until one of my shoes surrendered under the weight of my body making me fall on the ground hitting my chest against the sidewalk of a not-really-so-visited street. The knock cut me out of breath out my thoughts quickly went to the tapes inside my pockets. They really hadn't to be ruined. Luckily, since the coat was quite thick and that I fell on my stomach, nothing that was inside my side pockets had really hit the ground. I couldn't find the strength to stand up. With which courage could I look Finn in the eyes, now? He repented and I knew it well but those words had come out of his mouth and that mouth had hurt Blaine.

I wondered if it would have mattered as much to me if I hadn't had a crush on that damn guy for more time than I was able to remember.

Why? Why him?

Why him, Finn?

I curled up, coughing and my ribs hurt at every cough. I was destroyed after only three stories; I wondered what I would look like at the end.

_I could have saved you, Blaine; I could have taken you away._

You didn't let me.


End file.
